4.

Another day, another alarm bell. This time it didn't catch the Titans entirely by surprise, but it did cause a stir. Two days in a row, it was turning out to be a busy week.

The group assembled in the main foyer, like they'd done so many times before, and looked up at the giant screen to see what evil was befalling Jump City this day.

Oh my.

It was the one person that none of them ever wanted to see, the one that, no matter how many times they put him down, he got back up, with seemingly more strength and determination than the last time.

To their combined horror and disappointment, it was Slade.

"Slade..." Robin hissed. Everyone, with the possible exception of he himself, noticed Starfire take a few shuffling steps towards him, and stand almost uncomfortably close to him. Sure he could feel her there, her hair brushing against him, her breath, but he was completely fixed to the screen.

That screen that he was so affixed to, was showing Slade, but he wasn't doing much, just standing there in the middle of the street, randomly firing some manner of laser into the buildings around him.

"What's he doing?" Beast Boy asked. The group looked for a moment or two longer.

"Redecorating?" Raven offered.

"He's nuts..." Cyborg said. Somehow, despite the mask that covered all but his left eye, Slade managed to portray the very picture of calm, slowly moving his gun this way and that, blowing holes in everything but, it seemed, the panicked people that ran around him, trying to get away.

"He's going to kill someone if we don't stop him." Robin said through clenched teeth. He still hadn't moved his eyes. Every so often Slade would look right at the camera, like he knew it was there.

Knowing Slade, he probably did know it was there.

"Let's go!" Robin said, running out of the room. The rest of the Titans didn't waste any time in following him.

With Slade, they couldn't afford to take any chances. He had to be stopped, right now.

5.

"Look out, he's crazy!" Someone yelled as a bolt of light shot over their shoulder. People were running in every direction, but amazingly, Slade had not managed to hit a single one of them yet.

No one really knew this, but he wasn't trying to hit them.

If he were trying, they would all be dead.

"Yes, go, run for your lives. That's it." Slade said, too quietly to be to anyone but himself.

"That's enough Slade!" The Titans rounded the corner,Robin was yelling his commands as they came.

"Titans, go!"

"Ahh, finally." Slade said, again, to himself. He threw the gun aside and turned to meet the rush.

This had been the plan all along.

When the Titans met him, he immediately went on the defensive, blocking the flurry of attacks they sent against him. His goals for this exchange were very simple, but to accomplish them, he first had to eliminate a few of the Titans from the picture.

When Cyborg came at him, he threw out a new little toy of his, something he'd come up with, a small, flat projectilethat carried with itan EMP, or Electro-Magnetic-Pulse Generator. It landed at Cyborg's feet and went off in a small explosion of light.

Cyborg was still in motion when his systems shut down.

Good, Slade thought, he'll be down at least a few minutes.

The lifeless form of Cyborg fell to the ground and skidded a few dozen feet before coming to a dead stop.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Oh yes, the witch. A lamp post behind Slade started to glow black, then started to bend around on itself, coiling like a snake ready to strike. It lunged out at Slade, who jumped easily out of its way, and before landing, threw another device at Raven. Just as it got to her, it exploded, and dozens of tendrils of some kind of fabric wrappedthemselves around her, cocooning her on the spot. She went crashing down to the ground, and was thus disabled.

Two down, one to go.

He fought off an attack of Robins, swatting him out of the air with the back of his closed fist. Robin went flying, and crashed into a parked car. Starfire, instantly fuelled by what had just happened, fired a volley at Slade. He danced out of the way, and punched her squarely on the jaw as she flew by. She went skittering off along the ground and stopped in a pile, not out cold, but down for at least a count of ten.

Now, for Beast Boy. The green lad came running atSlade from behind, and surprised him.Beast Boywas in the form of a rhinoceros and sent Slade to the ground with a resounding crash. Slade quickly recovered however, and, while still lying on the ground, he threw yet another capsule at Beast Boy. This one, admittedly was not his idea. He'd actually borrowed this one from Robin, from when he was having his little fit, as the Rogue thief, X. The capsule exploded into a mass of grey green slime, and covered Beast Boy before he had a chance to move. Now, no matter what form he took, he would not be going anywhere, leaving Slade to deal with the real reason he'd drawn the Titans out. Starfire, and Robin.

They were both starting to pick themselves up, but Robin had the tangled wreckage of the car he'd slammed into to deal with, so Slade turned to face Starfire, who was, in fact, perfect for the next part of his plan. She flew at him and rained green energy down on him, but he was too fast. He dodged all of her attacks, then jumped up into the air and had her by the throat before she could move. They both landed, and he held her in one outstretched hand, slowly choking the life out of her. She kicked out with her feet, but they couldn't reach him, and when she brought her arms down on his, it felt like hammering a log of English oak.

"Now, your love will be his undoing, my dear." Slade said, squeezing harder. She didn't really hear him, in her current state, and even if she did, it did not register. She tried another kick, but it, like all the others, came up short. There was a small crunch from somewhere in her throat, and pain shot through her. Her eyes started to roll back in her head.

"STARFIRE!" Robin yelled, as he powered the last part of the car off of him. He ran, passed Cyborg, who was still offline, Raven, who thrashed around in her cocoon like an inch worm, and Beast Boy who was still stuck in place. Robin launched himself up into the air and threw himself at Slade.

Bingo.

Slade saw it there, in his eyes, more intense than he'd seen it in the video of yesterday's fight.

He saw love.

Slade tossed Starfire aside like a rag doll, and defended against Robins attack.

He had to see how deep the seam ran. What would he give for her.

"That's right, Robin, fight to save her." He put his arms in front of him, and blocked a volley of punches.

"You realize that I will kill her if you do not defeat me, here and now. So COME AT ME!" Slade sneered. Robin was furious, which was just what Slade wanted. He heard a small moan and a series of coughs from behind him, and knew that Starfire was awake, but basically out of commission. Good, now for that last part. Robin was firing punches out randomly and without thought, so catching one and turning it into a painful joint lock proved an easy task.

"Now, know that I can kill you whenever I choose, Robin. Know that I have that power." He whispered into Robin's ear. Robin tried to get free, but the more he struggled, the greater the pressure on his arm.

"However, I feel like being charitable. I think I shall save it for another day, my former apprentice. Now, go to her." He shoved Robin as hard as he could, and sent him tumbling along the ground, and threw a few smoke screen capsules on the ground. They exploded in giant plumes of smoke, and when it cleared, Slade was nowhere to be seen.

Robin's head was spinning, his chest and now, right arm, were in considerable amounts of pain, but he still dragged himself to his feet. A small distance from him, Starfire lay, barely moving. Her hands were at her throat, and he could see that she was coughing rather violently.

He ran over to her, as fast as his tired legs would carry him.

What he didn't know, was that Slade was still watching, for he still had to know, had to see just how much that little green eyed girl really meant to him.

"Star, are you alright? Speak to me!" She was clutching at her throat, and coughing. He cradled her head in his lap, and lightly caressed her forehead until she'd stopped.

"I...am...ok..." she said, searching desperately for breath.It was more or less, a lie. "We must...help the others." She said. She was getting her wind back, but it hurt to breathe.

"You're not ok, at all, Star..." He said, moving his hand from her forehead to her cheek. There was a little bit of a bruise, where her neck met her jaw line, but it was her rasped breathing and panicked look that led Robin to that conclusion.

"You...saved...me..." She said, and grabbed his hand on her cheek with both of hers. She pulled herself up and they locked in an embrace, and soon, both of them felt a little better.

Slade saw it all, and no one knew it, but under his mask, he was smiling.

Once they'd separated themselves, they went to each one of their teammates and tried to free them of their various prisons. Starfire fired a low yield blast, which melted the goo off of Beast Boy, and maybe singed his hair a little. Robin used the edge of one of his boomerangs to extricate Raven from her cocoon, an action which almost brought a look of gratitude to her face.

"Thanks," she said.

They all gathered around Cyborg, who was still in the last position he'd been in at the moment the EMP went off.

"Anyone know where his on switch is?" Raven muttered. They all looked at him as a dog would look at a car with its hood up; a bunch of stuff that they would never hope to understand. Suddenly, there was a small tone, the sound of a computer booting up, and the colour returned to Cyborgs robotic parts. He started to rub the human side of his head.

"Anyone get the licence number of that bulldozer?"

They all started to walk away.

"So...should I order the victory pizza?" Beast Boy asked. They all looked at each other with some questioning.

"What did we win?" Robin asked rhetorically. "Slade just shot a bunch of holes in a bunch of things, and then beat us up for a little while...whatever this was, it wasn't a victory." Beast Boy looked disappointed at that, but satisfied.

Slade, who was quite satisfiedas well, jumped down off the roof where he'd been hiding, and returned to his lair to prepare forthe next day.

It was going to be a good day, indeed.

6.

That evening, the group were still recovering. With the exception of Raven, who'd left the majority of her problems in a tangled pile in the middle of downtown Jump City, the rest were still suffering the after effects of the battle with Slade.

"That guy is seriously losing it..." Beast Boy said, picking lumps of that grey mud off of him.

"Yeah, I mean, what was the deal? He's not even committing crimes anymore, he's just trying to annoy us." Cyborg said. He had a panel dislodged from his left arm and was tinkering around inside with a screwdriver.

"Something tells me we're going to find out what he's up to, today was definitely not the end of it," Robin said, reflectively. He was playing the detective again, trying to figure out the next ten moves. They all thought he was right, however. Slade was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them. Cyborg finished what he was doing, and snapped the panel back on his arm.

"Well, whatever he has planned, it had better wait until morning." He stood up and yawned, stretching his arms up over his head. "Goodnight." He said, saying it slowly, comically.

"I think I'm going to turn in, too. Slade will probably have us up, nice and early." Raven said, moving towards her room. "Goodnight."

"Yeah, I think we should all get some sleep, its been a tough day, and tomorrow won't get any easier." Robin said. Beast Boy was already on his way to his room, completely preoccupied with a glob of goo that had been twisted into his hair. He muttered something about bad hair days before disappearing around the corner. Robin was walking towards his room, when Starfire stopped him, placed her hand on his shoulder. He turned around and she looked deeply into his eyes.

"You saved me today, Robin." She said, not removing her hand from his shoulder. Robin wasn't exactly sure he had saved her, it was more like Slade had let her go, in favour of going after him. He decided to let her think that he did save her, for some reason, he thought it might be rudeto make her try to see it otherwise. She was still looking long into him, waiting for an answer.

"Sure...but its nothing you haven't done for me, nothing we haven't done for each other a million times over. We're a team Star, it's what we do."

Starfire thought about this, and he was right. But it wasn't the fact that he saved her that was sticking in her mind, it was the voracity with which he did it. She remembered the lights going out, the black seeping in fro mthe sides of her eyes, Slade's hand around her throat, and then him screaming her name and running full boar towards her. Sure, they'd all protected, saved, rescued each other a hundred times over, but that,the passion of his actions, the emotion in his voice, that was extra. That was what she was swooning over.

"You did more than just save me, I was...close to death. You fought to free me from his grip...I remember. Thank you..." She put her other hand on his other shoulder, he responded by putting his hands on her hips.

"It was...nothing." They leaned into one another and kissed. Longer and forever more fulfilling than the day before. Starfire, after a time, pulled away. Robin looked at her, to find the problem, and she looked like she wanted to say something.

"What?" He asked.

"Oh...it is just that...could you...remove your mask?" Robin didn't have to think very hard about that one. He wanted to share everything with Starfire.

He peeled the mask from his face, revealing to Starfire, two piercing, blue eyes. She stood on her tip toes to reach his face and they kissed again. Robin let the mask limply from his hand, his attention was on other things entirely. They stopped again.

"I love you..." Stafire was about to say 'I love you, Robin' but that didn't sound right at all.

"I love you, Dick."

"I love you too, Kori." He responded, and they went right back to their passionate embrace.

It would be about ten hours before they let go of that embrace again.

7.

Love,

They walked, awkwardly, their lips pressed together towards Starfire's room. Robin thought, only vaguely (his mind was quickly being consumed by the beauty he was kissing) that this had been put off for far too long, this embrace, these feelings. They knew why they didn't express their feelings for each other in the past, they were after all, teammates, but they knew it would end up like this sooner or later, there was simply nothing else for it. Teammates shouldn't do this, but soon they wouldn't be teammates. Soon, they would be lovers.

Nothing, to either of them, had ever felt so right.

They reached Starfire's bed, and she leaned back, pulling Robin down on tope of her. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, and Robin responded by rolling over so they were laying beside each other. Still, their lips refused to part. Starfire moved her hand to cup Robins cheek, and lightly stroked his face with her thumb. Meanwhile, Robin moved his hands slowly down her back, towards the zipper that held her purple dress on.

In love they were joined, in it they were whole, and in love, soon, they would be doomed.

Love.